Damage To Services

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30445, 20 May 1964, Page 16

Damage To Services

Sir,—Now that a City Council department has been deprived, by the over-enthusi-astic wielding of a pneumatic drill, of the use of its own purveyed wares—if reticulated electricity can be so described—perhaps some incandescant mentalities will come to light with a method to prevent similar occurrences in the future'. Oyer the last 12 months there have been several of these contretemps to different underground services, causing unnecessary inconvenience ' and expense. Once again it would seem that there is sometimes a grievous lack of co-operation among the various bodies, public and private. Cannot our local authorities provide details of all concealed pipes, conduits, and cables in the area when issuing permits for constructive work involving excavation? And who pays for any such damage? Directly, of course; for eventually the long-suffering public indirectly pays the dun.—Yours, etc., D. BROWN.

May 12, 1964. [The acting city engineer (Mr W. H. Scott) replies: “The damage referred to by Mr Brown in his letter was dua entirely to carelessness by a contractor’s employee and can in no way be attributed to lack of liaison between the council and the utility concerned. At present there is very .good co-operation between the council’s reading department and the public utilities who bury their services in our roads. Although, occasionally, underground services have been damaged during road reconstruction, these have all been of an accidental nature and are almost inevitable when the amount of road reconstruction at present being carried out is taken into consideraln this particular case, the contractor involved will certainly be asked to pay for the damage and the cost' of restoring.”]